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Public companies have their financial records available. I wonder if it'd be possible to work out how much they pay in transaction, chargeback and credit card f

Public companies have their financial records available. I wonder if it'd be possible to work out how much they pay in transaction, chargeback and credit card fees. Startup: "Dear Amazon (or any Fortune 500 company,) you pay $xx in transaction fees annually, install our system to cater to the $xx-sized bitcoin economy, and save about $xx in fees." Even Square: "2.75%. [But] if you enter credit card numbers manually, Square costs 3.5% + 15¢ per transaction." https://squareup.com/pricing https://squareup.com/pricing Can that be beaten with say an android client: https://github.com/bitcoin-labs/bitcoin-mobile-android https://github.com/bitcoin-labs/bitcoin-mobile-android and a printed qr code? Philosophizing more, in the larger scheme of things, perhaps Bitcoin can remove the notion of socialized losses from society which has devastated the economy.

btilly 15y ago
Unfortunately the entire bitcoin economy isn't big enough to represent an interesting line of business for Amazon. Certainly not enough to have to keep track of exchange rates and offer pricing. But I wonder if there is a role for an affiliate that actually makes the purchases and sends them to people. That is they make the purchase on Amazon on their own account, and have it shipped where you want it shipped. They accept bitcoins from you, pay dollars to Amazon, and trade back bitcoins for money on the exchanges. Their profit margin comes because they are an Amazon affiliate, and put their affiliate code on all of their purchases, so that they get the affiliate fee. Something like this would not really need much cooperation from Amazon. Heck, you could just have a browser plugin that recognizes Amazon, and gives the user the option to make a bitcoin purchase instead of using your credit card.
- adrianwaj 15y ago
  This is a good idea, but the key is in making the browsing and selection of items as transparent as possible. It's another layer. Some type of price comparison engine would work really well: browse on Amazon, buy on xxx, pay with Bitcoin. add: the other short-term use case for bitcoin and say Amazon is giving refunds in bitcoin given the reach of bitcoins is low right now. Refunds are a push to market, as opposed to a pull. Typical cc chargebacks can be expensive too, and so refunding in bitcoin avoids it.

btilly 15y ago

Unfortunately the entire bitcoin economy isn't big enough to represent an interesting line of business for Amazon. Certainly not enough to have to keep track of exchange rates and offer pricing. But I wonder if there is a role for an affiliate that actually makes the purchases and sends them to people. That is they make the purchase on Amazon on their own account, and have it shipped where you want it shipped. They accept bitcoins from you, pay dollars to Amazon, and trade back bitcoins for money on the exchanges. Their profit margin comes because they are an Amazon affiliate, and put their affiliate code on all of their purchases, so that they get the affiliate fee. Something like this would not really need much cooperation from Amazon. Heck, you could just have a browser plugin that recognizes Amazon, and gives the user the option to make a bitcoin purchase instead of using your credit card.

adrianwaj 15y ago
This is a good idea, but the key is in making the browsing and selection of items as transparent as possible. It's another layer. Some type of price comparison engine would work really well: browse on Amazon, buy on xxx, pay with Bitcoin. add: the other short-term use case for bitcoin and say Amazon is giving refunds in bitcoin given the reach of bitcoins is low right now. Refunds are a push to market, as opposed to a pull. Typical cc chargebacks can be expensive too, and so refunding in bitcoin avoids it.